Seven Firsts
by yellow 14
Summary: A child's first burst of magic is considered to be a major stepping stone in the child's development in the wizarding world. This covers seven individual experiences. Written for HedwigBlack's weekly challenge.


Disclaimer: Don't own anything you recognise.

AN: Written for HedwigBlack's weekly challenge.

Sunita Patil watched in awestruck amazement as she watched her twin daughters move their little bricks around.

They were little building blocks, the kind played with by children everywhere, with colourful sides and letters on them. Padma and Parvati had taken to playing with them together a lot and they definitely seemed to like them, despite their differences.

Parvati was the bossy, more dominant twin with hundreds of ideas, often rushing from one idea to the next as quickly as her three-year old self could think of them. She had a tendency to try and push the blocks together as quickly as possible, without thinking how they worked or if the structure would stand up.

Padma on the other hand, favoured a more thoughtful approach. A thoughtful expression would come over her face as she contemplated how to make Parvati's ideas real, before assembling the bricks together with the precision of an artist.

Sunita had seen them assemble many different structures time and time again and there was nothing unusual about this one, a type of castle that resembled Hogwarts.

There was nothing unusual in the behaviour of the twin girls either. Parvati was jabbering away happily to her sister in a strange mixture of Punjabi, English and a language all of their own Sunita mentally dubbed as twinnish.

What REALLY made Sunita watch with such an awestruck interest and more than a little pride was how the two girls were handling the blocks. Instead of handing them over and piling them on top of one another in a ramshackle manner that was typical of children the world over at that age, the bricks were picking themselves up and placing themselves on top of one another in an orderly fashion, the two girls clearly working together in a co-ordinated fashion as they looked at the bricks.

"My precious little girls," she murmured happily, a smile on her face. "My precious little girls and their first burst of magic."

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"Out! Out!" Druella Black shouted angrily as she waved her hands at an annoying fly that had wondered into the house.

"Ou, ou," baby Bellatrix said as she waved her hands about mimicking her mother's actions and Druella gave her eighteen month old daughter a smile of affection.

"That's right," she cooed as she looked at her perfect little pure-blood daughter, one who would no doubt make the house of Black proud she had no doubt. It was a shame that she wasn't a boy, but no doubt there would be other children and there would be boys somewhere along the line.

"Ou, ou," Bellatrix continued, waving her little arms about at the fly that continued buzzing around and Druella reached over to her wand to zap the annoying creature when a sudden flash of green caught her attention and there was a sudden burning smell.

"What the…" she said in a stunned voice, before noticing that the fly was no longer buzzing around.

"Ou, ou," Bellatrix continued, waving her arms about and Druella spotted the fried remains of the fly lying on the floor and suddenly her eyes widened as she realised what had just happened, before she suddenly grabbed her daughter and started dancing with her in a very un-Black way.

"You did magic, you did magic, you did magic!" she exclaimed happily. "You clever little girl, you clever little girl!"

Bellatrix gurgled away happily at this unexpected display of emotion from her mother and waved her hands about a bit more.

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Cedric Diggory was painfully aware that he was a disappointment to his father.

It wasn't anything that his father said or did, but there was a distinct feeling that whatever he did was simply not good enough and for one simple reason.

At the age of seven years old, Cedric had never once shown any sign magic at all and there were rumours that he was in fact a squib.

It might not be fair to be disappointed that your only son appeared to lack any magic and although his dad tried to avoid showing it, but there was a lack of enthusiasm with everything Cedric did that Cedric could just tell he felt

Today was no different of course. They were at a party being held by their neighbours, celebrating the Chinese New Year. Cedric had managed to wonder away from his parents and had met up with a group of other children at the party, including the daughter of the host family, Cho.

He was standing at the table, fiddling with a pear in his hand as he talked to her when he felt the pear grow warm and suddenly he heard Cho gasp.

"Cedric, your pear!" she exclaimed with surprise and Cedric suddenly looked down at his hands.

Sitting there in his hands, his pear, a perfectly ordinary one, had turned to solid gold. Like a wave, people began to notice and soon Cedric could see his parents looking at him with unadulterated pride and he felt his heart lift.

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It was three in the morning when Hermione Jean Granger woke her parents howling to be fed, her tiny arms waving around in frustration. With a groan not unfamiliar to anyone who has had babies and especially those who were looking after babies of three months, Jane Granger pulled herself out of bed, rubbing her eyes. She walked over to her daughter's bedroom and picked her up.

"Okay, okay Hermione," she said tiredly as she bent over to pick the howling baby. "Mummy's here," she added as she began breastfeeding Hermione and within moments the little girls was chugging away happily. Jane smiled.

"Oh Hermione, you're so precious," she murmured happily as her daughter greedily drank. Then, on the very threshold of her hearing, Jane Granger suddenly heard a quiet music fill the room and Hermione's face seemed to light up.

"I must be hearing things," she muttered to herself as she put her daughter back in her cot. "After all, where could the music be coming from?"

In a castle in Scotland, an old man could have answered her question. But Albus Dumbledore was not on hand to answer her and so Jane Granger went to bed unaware that she had just witnessed her daughter's first burst of magic.

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Albus Dumbledore was, without a doubt, the most intelligent baby boy Healer Meridith Shanna had ever seen.

Most parents were convinced that their child was the most beautiful, the most intelligent, the most gifted baby ever and for the most part, Healer Meridith agreed with them or said nothing. But the Dumbledore child was without doubt, the most intelligent baby she had ever seen. He recognised her as his mother's friend and he had managed to hold his head up earlier than he was supposed to be able and he even seemed to have an instinctive ability when he was crawling, to avoid running into danger.

She had known Albus since he was born and she had to admit that she was fond of him. Kendra was every inch the loving mother and doting wife and his father was as good a father as any man she had ever met, fiercely protective of his wife and child. But there was no mistaking the look of intelligence behind his innocent baby eyes. The way he looked at things and figured out ways around obstacles. (Much to his parents chagrin, especially when he managed to find his way to grabbing expensive spell books and wands!) He even recognised himself in the mirror, a feat most children didn't learn until they were two, but he had done it at the age of nine months!

So it came as no surprise to her when Kendra called her into the garden to look at Albus, but she was surprised at just what she was seeing. Sitting at the base of a flower bed, Albus was stroking the flowers and as he did, they bloomed into flowers of vivid blues and purples that didn't match the breed of flowers that grew there.

"Oh Merlin," Kendra whispered happily, tears of happiness running down her cheeks as she gazed at her son. "It's his first burst of magic."

"Congratulations," Meridith said as she put an arm around her friend and she smiled as she watched him continue to stroke the flowers. Yes it was wonderful. But it was very clear to her that Albus Dumbledore was clearly no ordinary wizard.

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Luna gurgled away happily as she watched the world around her fly by, waving her hands and giggling as she felt her wisp-like hair move in the passing breeze. It was just like when daddy picked her up and held her in the air.

There was one minor difference in this case though. Daddy was on the other side of the room, staring in wonder as his four month old daughter floated around the room, a yellow and gold nursery with nargle repelling charms.

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Hermione was sitting down in St Mungo's bouncing Rose on her knee and the little girl gurgled away happily. Hermione smiled at her daughter as they waited to be called in. Her little girl with her short reddish-brown hair and sweet eyes, was, in Hermione's opinion, the most adorable little girl in the world. Of course, she was just a _little _biased, but as she said to Ron, if you can't be biased about your own child, who can you be biased about? Of course she was absolutely terrified of getting it wrong, but as Molly had said to her when she first discovered she was pregnant, her instincts were a tremendous help and Molly and Fleur and all the other Weasley's were on hand if she needed advice and nobody would think less of her for it.

She looked around the stone and wood lined room. It was definitely different to muggle hospitals and it made Hermione feel a little...uncomfortable. It wasn't that it was anything anyone said or did exactly, but it did remind her that she had grown up in a very different world before coming to Hogwarts. On the plus side, it was certainly more comfortable so...

Hermione mentally sighed as she smiled at her daughter. The reason she was focusing on the decor was for one very simple reason. Sitting opposite her with an unreadable expression on her face, was Astoria Malfoy and sat on her knee was her slightly older baby boy Scorpius. He was sitting on his mother's knees with a small red ball in his hands, which he waved about a lot and Hermione had to admit that Astoria certainly seemed to be besotted with her son and didn't seem to want any trouble, but Hermione's gut was telling her that something big was going to happen and it was going to involve Astoria in some way or another. It didn't help that the other woman was an unknown to her, but the fact that she had married Draco Malfoy suggested that she was not adverse to the idea of blood purity.

Goo, goo, goo!" Scorpius said happily as he waved his ball about. After a particularly vigorous wave, the ball suddenly came free and flew at Rose's face but before Hermione could do anything the ball suddenly stopped in mid air. Rose gurgled away happily as she waved her hands at the ball, while Scorpius stared at her curiously, as though he had never seen a girl before. (Which was possible, Hermione admitted to herself. The Malfoy family was notoriously reclusive since the end of the war) Suddenly the ball bounced towards Scorpius and it halted again as Scorpius waved his hands at the ball and it flew between the two children like a game of magical ping-pong, all the time giggling away like it was the funniest thing they'd ever seen and Hermione and Astoria both smiled.

"I love it when they display their first burst of magic, don't you?" Astoria said with a smile. "Draco's going to be so proud."

"Ron will as well," Hermione said with a sense of pride and some embarassment at her earlier assumptions about the other woman. "But I just love the way they want to explore everything."

The two women continued to talk until Hermione was called into the healer's office, while Rose and Scorpius continued their little game of bouncing the ball.

"Rose seems to like Scorpius's company. I was wondering if you would like to meet another time?" she asked and Astoria smiled at her ruefully.

"Yes, I think it would do Scorpius good to mix with other children," she replied. "Send me an owl and we can sort something out."

And although neither woman knew it, it was the start of a new friendship that would change the wizarding world.


End file.
